Sunday, January 9, 2011

I Am Cold.

I am always cold,
these new days.
I am chilled
to the core of my being.
My spine
feels like a rod of frozen steel,
and the nerves branching out
might as well be icicles.

I live
in exile,
in a place
where the cold of winter,
is amplified by the winds
that swell off the water like waves.
The wind howls and curses those of us,
who have chosen this penninsula for home.
The wind tears through windows,
and under crawl spaces,
and reminds us that we are just visitors here.

In time,
the wind and the water
will reclaim this small patch of earth.
It has happened before
when the hurricaine
washed this place away,
swept it clean.
And it will happen again.

I cannot shake this cold.
It only takes a few short hours
for the pier to become iced in
and the shore a jagged visage
of shattered glass.
I watch the white caps on the water,
diffuse into and add to,
the icy edge that grows before my eyes.
It is hard for me to believe
that while I am just twenty miles from my old home in the city,
I am now living on the edge of the world.

And the cold inside me
cannot be shaken or shrugged off.
It reminds me
of the warmth I once shared;
the warmth that was taken from me.
The cold is now a part of my soul.
It reminds me
that I am home.